25 YEARS OF INNOVATOIN: HOW BTU IS INNOVATING UKRAINIAN AND GLOBAL BIOAG

25 years of Innovation: How BTU is Innovating Ukrainian and Global BioAg

BTU Biotech Company was founded in 1999 by the Bolokhovsky family. It started as a team of like-minded people searching for biological solutions to restore ecosystems damaged by oil and gas production. Initially, the company produced oil pollution destructors, sorption mats and tanks, and biopolymers to increase oil and gas yield. Further, they developed a new biological technology to restore soil contaminated by oil spills. The company continued its research with new specialists, talented microbiologists, chemists, and specialized agronomists on the team. Original, innovative developments were created in the laboratories and BTU began to produce the first products for agriculture. The company takes pride in being a Ukranian biotech company and all its products are based on Ukranian know-how. In 2001, the state recognized the BTU's achievements. Director of Prospects and Development Valentyna Bolokhovska and Chief Microbiologist Olga Nagorna were honored with the State Prize of Ukraine in the field of science and technology. In 2007, a technological line for packaging private sector products was put into operation. Biotechnolo gies are becoming available not only to large farms but also to people with small homesteads

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In 2013, BTU began producing products for crop production under the Zhiva Zemlya brand. The name was selected because all biological products with natural beneficial microorganisms compensate for their deficiency in impoverished agricultural systems. In 2015, Boris Paton, President of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, awarded BTU the Silver Medal of Golden Fortune for a significant contribution to the development of domestic biotechnologies. Numerous awards and certificates shape the creative approach of microbiologists today. The company keeps the secrets of its technology but sincerely shares the experience gained with the whole world. A team of caring people at BU look after soil, plants, animals, and certainly people. They produces microbial and enzyme products for plant protection and nutrition, soil recovery, biological products for animal husbandry and more.

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Its agronomists provide professional advice and, if necessary, develop cultivation technological schemes, taking into account the specifics of each farm. BTU and its team is passionate about sustainability and contribute meaningfully to it. They believe land needs love, work, and devotion. They focus on constantly improving the quality of their biologicals by conducting scientific, laboratory, and practical research. Their products can be used both in integrated and organic farming, which is approved by international Ukrainian and European certificates. BTU conducts scientific and practical seminars, participates in industry exhibitions, actively cooperates with scientific research institutes, and continues to produce new biologicals for crop as well as animal production. This year the company turns 25 years old, but this is just a stepping stone. It is no longer a small laboratory, but a large enterprise with production facilities. 10,000 tons of products per year are modern warehouses with climate, control and transport with temperature regime. This involves four million restored Ukrainian land annually and an export system for 16 countries. In 2021, the above-mentioned developments and technological solutions were integrated into arable land and helped farmers earn an additional seventy dollars per hectare and more than $280 million annually. In 2020, Valentyna Bolokhovska became the ideological inspirer and co-founder of the Committee for Soil Fertility Restoration. The committee's purpose is to develop a conscious and rational attitude amongst farmers towards soil as a valuable and irreplaceable resource.

Since 2020, the committee has organized a forum that brings together business, scientific and educational institutions, and the state sector to update the topic of soil degradation. The result was the development of the "National Program for Revival of Soil Fertility of Ukraine," which is being implemented today as part of legislative initiatives. On the initiative of the committee, educational events for farmers are regularly held, at which the issue of rational use of land resources is raised, taking into account economic growth, biodiversity conservation, and the development of sustainable agriculture.

On the initiative of the committee, educational events for farmers are regularly held, at which the issue of rational use of land resources is raised, taking into account economic growth, biodiversity conservation, and the development of sustainable agriculture.

Roger: I am going to call you the hidden gem of the BioAg industry. You are a scientist passionate about innovation. Each product is a result of your R&D, you are not just blending. Can you tell our global audience a little bit more about your company?

Vladyslav: BTU products are present in 20 countries. In 1999 when the company was founded, we did not think about agriculture; we started working with oil production with bioproducts and biopolymers. I founded BTU together with my parents. I graduated from Ukrainian State University and became a food technology specialist in 1998. One year later, we started our business. We did not have a vision of this picture, but now we have even more than we dreamt about. Firstly, it is our dream team - our specialists, scientists, workers, and all other employees. We worked with specific products that solved specific industrial problems. We were always flexible and at the same time very strong, because we found out the market need and tried to develop a solution for every situation. For example, we started working with one of our top biological ECOSTERN for soil properties recovery and for accelerated decomposition of plant residues. Even at that time, almost 15 years ago, we understood the importance of soil while most of the market players did not have the perspective of biologicals in open fields, rather only for indoor plants and greenhouses. Most producers in this industry work with just somemonocultures. So, we started to propose some complex solutions, which included 3-5 functional strains of microorganisms. Today, we have about 70 different products, loved in Ukraine and many other countries. Now, we all see that this was a winning strategy to start developing such complex solutions and for open-field companies to get experience of this scale of applications of biologicals. With this experience, we are ready to expand it to the new regions. We invested a lot of effort and resources both in R&D and the facilities. In the recent 5-7 years, we understood from the market that there is a need for a deeper understanding of what we do with soil and environment and agrotechnology. That is why we invested in a team of scientists, experts, and laboratories for the production. We also work with our partners and farmers. Our scientists work closely with what we do in agrotechnologies and help us to gain knowledge and understanding of mechanisms and do better diagnoses and recommendations on fields. We call this Entity Institute of Applied Biotechnology.

Roger: You are a head-on CEO who understands the science and technology behind what you're doing and all the processes are in-house starting from invention to scaling up. Tell me more about this.Vladyslav: I am a biotech engineer. I am proud that we have highly qualified employees, I mean biotechnologists and microbiologists, with 40-50 years of experience. We are very proud to work together in such a great team. It's very important to work with specialists on the job. We have a very effective team. One of the very crucial tasks for us, when the war began, was to keep our golden team, because it really took huge efforts to find, sustain, train, educate, and gather all these experts in one team. We have continued to develop and increase our staff. We hired 52 people in different departments last year. We now have 520 employees. It is very important in our family company that we don't just observe, but work; starting with owners, everyone has their own role and kind of specialty place in the company and we all really care about what we do.

Roger: You try to understand the needs of farmers and markets and then develop the solutions. A lot of your growth has come out of this, it's because of your market and farmer-centricity, am I right?

Vladyslav: Belief and professional driving of business are most important. To see a quick result you have to invest a lot of effort. My parents, myself, and my wife Alla, all work hard and grow our company. Also, it's very important to onboard passionate people. We had different challenges, we needed to structure the business, the processes, etc. Last 4-5 years, we did a lot of annual strategic planning. We hear from the bottom, what are the pains, and what are the narrow places to improve our productivity and efficiency. I believe it motivates the team as well because they understand, participate, and are involved in business development.

Roger: You mentioned a lot about innovation and market-centric innovation. How to enhance nutrient efficiency? Do you plan to have some of those kinds of nutrient efficiencies, and biotic and abiotic stress management related innovations? Are you planning something in that area?
Vladyslav: We don't stop and continuously work on the challenges. One of the directions is water use efficiency because we see the scarcity of water, in some of the regions. We not only work with biologicals, but we also work to increase the efficacy of some chemicals. We work both with soil water retention, the efficacy of absorption of water by plants, and the drought tolerance of plants as well. Our aim is not only to stimulate a bigger yield but also to preserve the yield. We have some technologies being used now for some biopolymers, for example on rape seed, cherries, or grapes which help to preserve the yield for example from cracking, different mechanical damage, etc. So, it's important to provide efficient agrotechnology with the use of biologicals strategically and for sustainability. We help farmers to harvest what they grow, not lose it in the soil. For example, on apples, chemicals are applied for better storage and we have data for substitution for a few years. It is a biological agent and helps to reduce wastage. Roger: Are you also trying some new ways of developing your solutions through artificial intelligence or data mining? A lot of these things are going on at the moment, knowing your company, I'm sure you are trying a few things.Vladyslav: I believe we still do not realize all the potential and change that are coming with these technologies. Of course, we try to be involved not only in products but in approach and we already use some of the solutions in marketing. We already have some ideas on how to generalize all the big data of thousands of trials and everything we have using artificial intelligence. I believe we will have to wait, let us say, to surprise the market.

Roger: I know that you are well supported by the family but you respect and value your team even more. Can you give me some comments on that, please?
Vladyslav: I've got one principle "Have such an attitude towards people as you want them to have towards you." Respect and trust are always in the first place. Besides, self-development plays an important role; be a good example for others. To be honest it's not easy to have a family business, because you bring and discuss a lot of things at home. But these challenges are still just a small part of the thing and in general, we complement each other, to understand and to support. So, it's quite a healthy working environment with the team. Our first principle is to be human in our relations and to keep relations with people. In our stage of growth now, it's also important to have separate HR functions and specialists who help to keep the atmosphere healthy. Quite critical for us in Human Resource Management is to eliminate toxic people to keep the atmosphere professional and employees happy.

Roger: You have brought this company up with your parents, your family, and your team. What are your plans for the next 25 years?

Vladyslav: It is a very good question, if you asked me two years ago, the answer would be different. We could dream more, and we didn't maybe realize all the challenges that we could have in our development. All of us and our team have changed a lot in these two years, the war made us stronger and more pragmatic. In this current situation, we see the global dynamics, the dynamics of industry in Ukraine, and the environmental, agricultural, and sustainability challenges in the world. With our current understanding of potential solutions, we propose what we are working with and we will keep working on these challenges. We understand we could be part of that movement to address these global challenges. And with this, we believe we will find a strong place in the market globally. We will keep sharing our experience, our passion, and our values.
Authors: Sucheta A. Wadhva, Roger Tripathi for BioAg World Digest: https://online.fliphtml5.com/jycuv/uerj/#p=1

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